Let's start this video with a quote from the magazine Scientific America, "The number of deaths and hospitalizations caused by prescription drugs has risen precipitously in the past decade, with overdoses of pain medications, in particular opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers, more than doubling between 1999 and 2006, according to a new study."

Now let's hear what comedian/commentator Bill Maher had to say about prescription drugs:

--"If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs."

--"We won't stop being sick if we don't stop making ourselves sick."

--"The government isn't your nanny. They're your dealer and they subsidize illness in America. They have to. There's too much money in it. You see, there's no money in healthy people and there's no money in dead people. The money is in the middle, people who are alive (sort of) but with one or more chronic conditions that puts them in need of Celebrex, Nasalnex, Valtrex, or Lunesta."

--"50 years ago children didn't even get Type 2 Diabetes. It's now an emerging epidemic as are a long list of ailments which used to be rare but have been 'mainstreamed.' Things like Asthma, autism, acid relfex, arthritis, allergies, adult acne, attention deficit disorder. And that's just the A's."

--Love to say ' when diet and exercise fail'. Well, DIET and EXERCISE don't fail. A FACT brought home last week by a Duke University study that showed exercise, yes EXERCISE, is just as effective as a cure for depression as Paxil and Zoloft. So ASK YOUR DOCTOR if getting off your ass is right for you!"

--"The answer just isn't another pill!"

Now, it's been estimated that prescription drugs is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. The following are Hollywood celebrities who have died with pharmaceutical drugs found in their system. We're not saying that the pharmaceutical drugs caused their deaths, only that the drugs were found in their system.

Now back to Scientific America's April 6, 2010 issue, "Teens and others have different attitudes in using these drugs," often presuming the prescription substances are safer and less addictive than illegal drugs such as cocaine or heroin, says Jeffrey Coben, a professor of emergency and community medicine at the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown and lead author of the new study. "I think that's a false assumption. Aside from the fact they can be taken orally rather than injected...[many prescription drugs] really are every bit as powerful, addictive and dangerous as heroin," he notes, adding that, "when you combine them with other sedatives, that mix can become particularly lethal...These categories of prescription drugs can kill and injure people by suppressing breathing, depriving the body of oxygen."